What in the world am I doing?

My first year’s goal is to begin a Winter CSA (community supported agriculture) share. Customers will pay at the beginning of the season and will pick up a share of approximately 25 lbs of produce every other week, January through April. This will equal eight pickups per share, weighing in at 200+ pounds. What is included in the share is split into four parts:

Storage produce: Potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, beets, cabbage, turnips, radishes, winter squash, pumpkins

Fresh produce: Kale, Belgian endive, Swiss chard

Canned goods: Spaghetti sauce, salsa, fruit preserves and jams, pickles

Frozen goods: Tomatoes, summer squash, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower

These are projected crops for the initial year. I plan to expand upon this, learning more about growing fresh veggies over winter and adding more frozen produce as I am able to purchase freezer equipment. For the first year, however, I want to keep things simple and work mainly with plants I have some experience with and storage methods requiring little start-up cost. Some experimentation will happen, if time and resources permit. I am definitely excited about learning more with each passing year.

I will be using organic, sustainable methods to grow these yummies: no chemicals, farm-produced compost/fertilizer, minimal machinery usage, cover crops, and much more. I may incorporate some biodynamic elements, such as planting by the lunar signs to give plants a bit of a natural boost.

If things go as planned, I will make my first planting in October – garlic, which grows over winter to be harvested in June. The rest will be started in March and April of 2011. Growing will continue through November, with Round One of CSA shares beginning the first week of January 2012. It seems a long way off, but will happen quickly!

I would like to spend the summer and fall at Nashville farmers markets, selling any excess produce as time and resources allow. I hope to produce enough to sell at least 15 shares for Round One.

More to come, but these are the (possibly too detailed) basics. What do y’all think? Input is more than welcome, encouragement and suggestions would be fabulous!

Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

Patty pan is a cute lil squash. Probably my favorite shape. I found a few recipes online for stuffing it, but none that suited my taste just right. I came up with this version that is basically cheese calzone filling inside a squash. That makes it healthy, right?

This recipe is just for one squash, but of course you can easily double, triple, quadruple, etc. It took about 10 minutes of actual prep work to make this -- super simple!


You need:

One medium patty pan squash (approx 6-8" diameter)
1/2 C ricotta cheese
1/4 C mozzarella cheese
2 garlic cloves, minced
herbs - oregano, basil, etc. - fresh is always best!

First you need to boil the patty pan until it's about 3/4 of the way done. This should take about 12-15 minutes. While that's going, pre-heat the oven to 350 and mix up the cheese, garlic and herbs. When the squash feels slightly tender when poked by a fork, yet still pretty firm, take it out, let it sit for a bit til it cools down. Then slice the top off -- top being the part where the stem was, the narrower end. Scoop out the insides, leaving at least half an inch of the lining. Be careful when you're scraping out the bottom - don't bust it! Fill 'er up with cheesy goodness, wrap in aluminum foil, and bake for 25-35 minutes, until the cheese is nice and melty. Eat that sucka up!


Another awesome way I like to eat patty pans is sliced thinly, about 1/4" thick, sauteed with garlic and olive oil, patted dry, then put on a sandwich or in a quesadilla. Yummmm.

Farmers market, hey-o!

I am now officially working for West Wind Farms as a farmers market booth operator (I think that's a good job title, yeah?) at the West Nashville Farmers Market, every other Saturday 9-12. Today was day 1 on my own and went by without a hitch. Out of the 30ish organic grass-fed free-range meat products I had, the most popular were eggs, boneless skinless chicken breast, chicken thigh meat, 80/20 ground beef, ground turkey, beef snack sticks and low sodium beef jerky.

Cah-ching!

All Life is Sacred

"We and all other creatures live by a sanctity that is inexpressibly intimate, for to every creature, the gift of life is a portion of the breath and spirit of God. We will discover that for these reasons our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrible blasphemy."

"We are holy creatures living among other holy creatures in a world that is holy. Why is it apparently unknown to millions of professed students of the Bible? How can modern Christianity have so solemnly folded its hands while so much of the work of God was and is being destroyed?"

"Obviously, 'the sense of the holiness of life' is not compatible with an exploitive economy. You cannot know that life is holy if you are content to live from economic practices that daily destroy life and diminish its possibility."

The industrial economy is "an economy firmly founded on the seven deadly sins and the breaking of all ten of the Ten Commandments."



"Everything that lives is holy" -- William Blake

"Creation is nothing less than the manifestation of God's hidden being." -- Philip Sherrard, Greek Orthodox theologian

"It takes a lot of nerve to destroy this wond'rous earth." -- Bowerbirds

"To Dante, 'despising Nature and her goodness' was a violence against God." --Wendell Berry

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handiwork." --Psalm 19


Wendell Berry, "Christianity and the Survival of Creation"

Of honor

"To us life, all life, is sacred. When we killed a buffalo, we knew what we were doing. We apologized to his spirit, tried to make him understand why we did it, honoring with a prayer the bones of those who gave their flesh to keep us alive, praying for their return."



‘When you kill a beast, say to him in your heart:
By the same power that slays you, I too am slain, and I too shall be consumed.
For the law that delivers you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.'

Death and dinner.

The scene: Maggie holding a baby broiler chick at Farmer Stacy's.

Me: "Maggie, one day that chicken will be dinner."
Maggie, with great enthusiasm: "And it will be so dead in my mouth! And it will be so yummy!"

Cooking list.

This week I would like to make:

Pizza - homemade crust, mozzarella, fresh tomatoes
Shepherd's pie (meatless) with seitan
Grilled squash & zucchini sandwiches
Pasta with goat cheese and cherry tomatoes
Sweet potato corn chowder

Who wants to come over for lunch/dinner?

Fettucine with Garlic Cream Sauce and Roasted Beets

I have a confession: I'm not much into the straight up taste of beets. But they're so dang pretty that I have to keep trying them. I've discovered that, when paired with a delicious garlicky buttery creamy sauce, beets taste pretty good. Add in a lovely friend and you're all set for the perfect Saturday lunch!

This time around I used golden beets and Chioggia. I think they're prettier than the standard dark red, and the taste is about the same.

Here's what you need:

1/4 cup butter
1 cup cream OR 1 cup milk with 3 tbsp flour
2-4 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped finely
3-4 large garlic cloves
A bunch of beets
A box of linguine

Here's what you do:

First you need to roast the beets. Rinse and wrap them in tinfoil. Put them in the oven at 375 for about 45 minutes, til they're tender.

About 30 minutes into the roasting, get started on your sauce. Melt the butter and stir in the milk -- but first, take a bit of the milk and stir it up with the flour in a cup or bowl, til the flour is mostly dissolved. Crush the garlic (I loooooove my garlic press so so much for this), add it and the parsley in. It'll take this 5-10 minutes to thicken up; give it a little longer if you want it to set more. Add a bit of salt, but make sure you're careful with it, since salted butter obv has salt already. Make your pasta. Mix 'em up. Enjoy.

As with most of what I cook, this can be tasted and tweaked according to preference. You can't have too much butter and you CERTAINLY can't have too much garlic.

Idyllic/Realistic

Paradise Produce: The ultimate paradox of the idyllic and the realistic.

The most valuable contribution Farmer Stacy has made to my farm learning is in accurately informing me of the difficulties of farming. It isn't always so pretty. It isn't always so fun to be pulling garlic when it's 99 degrees outside and feels like 105. Weeds happen; ones like spiny amaranth sneak up and slice your hand wide open. Manure can get smelly. Blood gets everywhere when you slaughter chickens and their wings flap around. Your back starts to hurt when you have to transplant 1000 ft of sweet potatoes. Two acres of crops is a LOT for one farmer to manage.

Yet! The beauty of the Lord's creation is tough to ignore. Wild turkeys strut their stuff in the morning, tail feathers all poofed out. Hummingbirds zoom by the back door on their way to the feeders. A pair of beautiful bluebirds made a nest under the eaves of the barn and little beaks stick out the top to receive juicy green caterpillars. On top of all that, the bounty of what the farmer has grown is exciting. Digging up a patch of huge carrots is super satisfying.

Most days, the rough and the lovely balance out pretty well. It's good to be in a place that is realistic through and through.